The real and imaginative adventures of Dennis Spielman

Tag: El Reno

Creative Burgers Vol 3 Route 66 Edition

Justin Coleman and Undrell Maholmes are back for burgers, melts, and other delicious food. This time, we traveled along Route 66. For our first stop, we visited Robert’s Grill in El Reno where Edward Graham made us a double-meat onion burger and a hotdog with slaw. We took a break for some coffee and drinks at The Red Bird Coffee House in Yukon before our second restaurant. Executive Chef, Randy Williams, at The Lokal in Yukon brought out his fried deviled eggs and the lokal club. For our final stop in Luther, we tried Farmstead Cafe’s signature burger made with their own local beef and a beanless take on a veggie burger they named the inconceivable burger.

In other news, I’ve launched an online merchandise store sporting designs from my fictional works as well as some fun Oklahoma-themed shirts.

Thank you for watching this episode of Uncovered in Oklahoma. We had originally planned to a Route 66 burger episode back in April of 2020, so we’re glad we finally got to do it. Thanks to my superstar supporters, Revolve Productions, and the Keller Kenton family, as well as all of my supporters on Patreon. If you love what I’m doing, please join me on Patreon for bonus content, early access to new episodes.

Happy Adventures!

Old El Reno Jail - photo by Dennis Spielman

Dark Concerns in El Reno

Sam and Geoff travel to El Reno – not for their onion burgers, but to meet with paranormal investigator and author Tanya Mccoy-Womack. At Iron Tree Coffee, Tanya talks about El Reno’s history, ghost stories, and local cryptids.

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Route 66 Sculpture in El Reno - photo by Dennis Spielman
Route 66 Sculpture in El Reno – photo by Dennis Spielman

Tales Unveiled is a production of The Show Starts Now Studios and is produced by me, Dennis Spielman. The voice of Sam Saxton is Dennis Spielman. The voice of Professor Geoff DeRoot is Jeff Provine.

We would like to thank our guest, Tanya Mccoy-Womack, for sharing stories with us and Iron Tree Coffee for hosting the interview session.

For more El Reno stories, check out Tanya’s book, Haunted El Reno

If you love what we’re doing, want us to keep being artist owned and patron supported, click here. In return, you get bonus content, including early access to my various shows!

Behind the Scenes Commentary (Spoilers)

Jeff had worked with Tanya on the Haunted Oklahoma City and Haunted Guthrie books and knew she would be great to have on the show. It was perfect timing for Tanya as her Haunted El Reno had been recently released. We talked about several of the stories in the book.

Although it wasn’t worked into the podcast, after Tanya took us to the old jail, we went and saw the hotel she talked about in the podcast. We didn’t go in or anything. We just wanted to see what it looked like real fast before we left town. I had been filming all day that day at the Oklahoma State Fair for Uncovering Oklahoma and Jeff had been working as well.

After our interview with Tanya, Jeff and I came up with the story plot of the Professor being concerned about his contacts in wake of Wendall’s murder, which we used for this episode and our Shawnee one.

I’ll have to back to El Reno at some point for Uncovering Oklahoma.

Get Your Spooks on Route 66 – From Arcadia to Chandler

In hopes of raising the professor’s spirits, Sam and Geoff leave Oklahoma City to travel east along Route 66 to collect ghost stories. Along the way, they make pit stops, like in Arcadia to find why the Round Barn isn’t haunted. In Chandler, they learn about Route 66 from artist and author Jerry McClanahan and hear ghost stories at Route 66 Interpretive Center with Susan Pordos and the Manvel Avenue Coffee Co with Steven Conway. On the way back, they visit with Dawn Shelton of the Luther Register News for some hometown spooky stories.

Subscribe to new episodes of Tales Unveiled via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere you enjoy podcasts.


Tales Unveiled is a production of The Show Starts Now Studios and is produced by me, Dennis Spielman. The voice of Sam Saxton is Dennis Spielman. The voice of Professor Geoff DeRoot is Jeff Provine.

We would like to thank our guests for sharing their stories with us: Steven Conway, Susan Pordos, Jerry McClanahan, and Dawn Shelton.

If you love what we’re doing, want us to keep being artist owned and patron supported, click here. In return, you get bonus content, including early access to other shows I make!

Behind the Scenes Commentary (Spoilers)

I’ve been wanting to hit up Route 66 to just find whatever stories we could uncover. We’ve had mixed luck with asking people on the spot for ghost stories in the past, but more often than not, we would find stories we wouldn’t have been able to find otherwise such as we did in Medicine Park.

We managed to get some great seldomtold stories in Chandler and I’m super happy with how well our day went. It took a while before we hit that jackpot. As a back-up, I did reach out to Dawn Shelton, who I had recently meet at a restaurant opening in Oklahoma City. We worked all this into the story.

I liked the use of the Professor’s logs in this episode. To me, it was a great story telling device to make the episode different from other in the series. I enjoy breaking up the episode formula to keep the show fresh. Jeff and I are thinking we’ll do it again next season, but instead of log numbers, we’ll do log times so it’s easier to keep track of our progress.

The first draft of the episode had no Sam narrations. I was going back and forth on including some. I sent Jeff the draft and he suggested I put some in to explain what was going on with the professor logs, the back story with Luther, and a comment on the professor’s mood. I included the teaser about El Reno since we had recorded that episode and knew our story plans.

In our El Reno episode, we do continue the Route 66 theme since the road does run through the town. We plan to do more about the highway.

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